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Legendary Jewish tennis champion Dick Savitt dies at 95
(JTA) — Dick Savitt, the Jewish tennis champion who won both the Australian Open and Wimbledon Championships in 1951, died Jan. 6 at 95 at his home in New York. He was the first Jewish athlete to win either tournament.
A native of Bayonne, New Jersey, Savitt never took a tennis lesson — his primary sport was basketball. But he taught himself to play tennis as a teenager, and would go on to play at Cornell University. After army service and college, his national profile skyrocketed.
Savitt won both the Wimbledon and Australian Open championships in 1951 when he was only 24. He was the second American man to win both competitions in the same year. The New York Times ranked him the No. 1 player in the world.
That same year, the 6-foot-3 righty also reached the semifinals of the U.S. National Championships and the quarterfinals of the French Championships, now called the U.S. Open and French Open, respectively.
But despite Savitt’s international success in 1951, he was removed from the U.S. team for that year’s Davis Cup tournament. Arthur Ashe, the trailblazing Black tennis champion and a mentee of Savitt, questioned the decision to remove the U.S. team’s top player from the tournament.
“In those days, to be Jewish in the top ranks of tennis was to encounter a certain amount of prejudice,” Ashe wrote in his memoir, “Days of Grace.” “When Dick Savitt won Wimbledon, his right to a place on the Davis Cup team was challenged in some circles because he was Jewish.”
Savitt, however, insisted that antisemitism did not play a part in the decision, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Davis Cup snub aside, Savitt remained at the top of the sport. He became the first Jewish athlete to appear on the cover of Time Magazine on Aug. 27, 1951.
Savitt’s ascension was significant during a time when tennis remained primarily an amateur, country club-based sport. Many American country clubs during the early- and mid-20th century had a track record of excluding Jews (and Blacks) from membership and from using their facilities.
In 1952, Savitt retired from tennis at only 25 years old. He would return part-time to competitive tennis a few years later, and in 1961 won gold medals in men’s singles and doubles at the Maccabiah Games in Israel.
After his playing career, Savitt supported the Israel Tennis Centers, and in 1998 served as its overseas director.
Savitt is a member of the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
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The post Legendary Jewish tennis champion Dick Savitt dies at 95 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.